Transfer of spin to orbital angular momentum in the Bethe-Heitler process
arXiv:2303.10851 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.108.036001
Abstract
According to the conservation of angular momentum, when a plane-wave polarized photon splits into a pair of electron-positron under the influence of the Coulomb field, the spin angular momentum (SAM) of the photon is converted into the angular momentum of the leptons. We investigate this process (the Bethe-Heitler process) by describing the final electron and positron with twisted states and find that the SAM of the incident photon is not only converted into SAM of the produced pair, but also into their orbital angular momentum (OAM), which has not been considered previously. The average OAM gained by the leptons surpasses the average SAM, while their orientations coincide. Both properties depend on the energy and open angle of the emitted leptons. The demonstrated spin-orbit transfer shown in the Bethe-Heitler process may exist in a large group of QED scattering processes.
References in corpus (24)
- Spin-orbit interactions of light
- Theory and applications of free-electron vortex states
- The role of polarized positrons and electrons in revealing fundamental interactions at the Linear Collider
- Measurement of Strange Quark Contributions to the Nucleon's Form Factors at Q^2=0.230 (GeV/c)^2
- Relativistic Electron Vortex Beams: Angular Momentum and Spin-Orbit Interaction
- Relaxion Stars and their detection via Atomic Physics
- Angular Momentum of Twisted Radiation from an Electron in Spiral Motion
- Trident pair production in strong laser pulses
- Spin-to-Orbital Angular Momentum Conversion and Spin-Polarization Filtering in Electron Beams
- Production of highly-polarized positrons using polarized electrons at MeV energies
- Colliding particles carrying non-zero orbital angular momentum
- Realization of electron vortices with large orbital angular momentum using miniature holograms fabricated by electron beam lithography
- Complete description of polarization effects in e^+e^- pair production by a photon in the field of a strong laser wave
- Twisted electron in a strong laser wave
- Measuring the phase of the scattering amplitude with vortex beams
- Quantum calculation of the Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation by twisted electrons
- Scattering of twisted electron wave-packets by atoms in the Born approximation
- Dynamical control of nuclear isomer depletion via electron vortex beams
- Non-linear quantum effects in electromagnetic radiation of a vortex electron
- Elastic scattering of twisted electrons by atomic target: Going beyond the Born approximation
- Effects of the transverse coherence length in relativistic collisions
- Twisted particle collisions: a new tool for spin physics
- Bremsstrahlung from twisted electrons in the field of heavy nuclei
- Generation of relativistic positrons carrying intrinsic orbital angular momentum